Huntsman's Paltry Crowds

By Joshua Green

A few weeks ago, I was up in New Hampshire for Jon Huntsman's maiden swing through the state as a possible -- it's now official -- presidential candidate. The rest of the national press corps seemed to be there, too. At many of the events, we reporters outnumbered actual voters, sometimes vastly. (Matt Bai describes this crush of media folks in the lede to his new Huntsman profile.) That's somewhat understandable for a candidate like Huntsman who has potential, though not yet many supporters. I wasn't at Huntsman's announcement speech in New Jersey this morning, but word on the ground is that, as in New Hampshire, there were still more members of the media present than actual voters. Needless to say, this is a problem he'll have to overcome in pretty short order if he wants to get any traction. And it's not as if there's some great mass of Huntsman couch potatoes sitting at home watching his motorcycle videos. The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll put Huntsman dead last among 10 candidates.